As Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and in various other roles as a close adviser to Obama, Austan Goolsbee was thought of as an influential member of the Obama Administration. What will change now that he is leaving? These are just a few data points from his recent and not so recent past.

In an interview with John Stewart last week, Goolsbee referred to the various bilateral free trade agreements as part of a bipartisan consensus of things to promote U.S. jobs.

In a 2008 flap about Obama’s real views on trade policy, and with regard to NAFTA in particular, Goolsbee was a campaign aide, and was caught assuring Canadian officials that “Mr. Obama’s protectionist stand on the trail was ‘more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.’” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/politics/04nafta.html(more…)

This data is from http://www.intrade.com. Somewhat different data apparently available from intrade.net. According to Intrade.com, there is a 45.7 percent chance the GOP will nominate a Mormon (Romney or Huntsman), an 11.9 percent chance a woman will be nominated (Palin or Bachmann), and very little chance Gingrich will get the nod. I’m not sure if this is relevant, but Gingrich has had 50 percent more wives than the 2 Mormon’s in the race, and the same number of wives as the three front runners.

There is more diversity in the GOP field this year than ever before. The Intrade.com odds favor Mormons, women and blacks by 63 to 37 percent over mainstream Christian, white, male candidates.

Intrade.Net is a futures market for betting on all sorts of events, including election results. Below are the market clearing prices for the the top 20 candidates for the 2012 republican nomination for president, as of 4 pm EST on May 14, 2011.